Description
A tender, flaky, and sweet cake with a twist—use your sourdough starter discard to bring added flavor to this classic cake.
Recipe adapted from Marian Burros.
Ingredients
- Nonstick cooking spray, softened butter, or parchment paper, for the pan
- 113 grams (1 stick, ½ cup) unsalted butter
- 78 grams (10 tablespoons) all-purpose flour
- 6 grams (1 ¼ teaspoon) baking powder
- 2 grams (½ teaspoon) Diamond Crystal kosher salt
- 2 grams (½ teaspoon) ground cinnamon or cardamom
- 150 grams (¾ cup) granulated sugar, plus more for sprinkling (or use Demerara sugar for sprinkling if you have it)
- 110 grams (about ½ cup) sourdough starter discard (100% hydration)
- 50 grams (1 large) egg
- 14 grams (1 large) egg yolk
- 9 grams (2 teaspoons) vanilla
- 1 gram (¼ teaspoon) almond extract (optional)
- 575g (about 1 ¼ pounds, 10 small or 4–5 large) plums
- Couple pinches flaky sea salt, for sprinkling (optional)
Instructions
- Place the butter in a small saucepan or skillet over medium heat. Melt the butter until it starts to foam and sputter, about 2 minutes. Whisking often, continue to cook the butter until it starts to quiet down, smells nutty, and turns deeply golden brown, 3-5 minutes. As you whisk, try to lift any browning milk solids that are stuck to the pot. Remove from the heat and immediately pour into a shallow heat-safe bowl placed over a digital scale, making sure to scrape in as many browned bits stuck to the pan as possible. You should have about 90 grams of butter remaining.
- Refrigerate the butter for about 35 minutes to solidify slightly (it should be the consistency of softened butter).
- While the butter chills, heat the oven to 350ºF/177ºC. Grease an 8-, 9, or 10-inch springform cake pan with nonstick cooking spray or softened butter. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. If using small (3 inches wide or smaller) plums, halve them; if larger, cut into quarters.
- In a large bowl, use an electric mixer on medium-high speed to cream the butter and sugar for 3 minutes, scraping down the bowl every minute or so. Beat in starter, egg, vanilla, and almond extract (if using) on medium speed for 1-2 minutes. Beat in the dry ingredients on low speed until just combined.
- Scrape the batter into the prepared pan. Top with the plums, skin-side up. Sprinkle with more granulated or Demerara sugar.
- Bake for 40-50 minutes, until the cake is deeply golden, starts to pull away from the edges of the pan, and a cake tester inserted into the center comes out with just a few moist crumbs (err on the higher side for smaller pans, lower side for bigger pans). As soon as the cake comes out of the oven, sprinkle the surface with flaky salt. Let it cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then release the outer spring and let cool for at least another 30 minutes, but ideally completely, before removing from the pan and slicing.
Notes
To prevent the plums from disappearing into the batter, add half at the start of baking, and the otherway halfway through the bake time.